In an Instagram post shared by the festival, the ACPK and its president, Ahmed Shah, it was announced that filmmakers from around the world were invited to submit their work for consideration to be displayed at the festival.

The post said submissions were live on Freeway and a variety of categories were welcome, including documentaries, narratives and short films.

The World Culture Festival will take place at the Arts Council from October 29 to November 22 and is expected to feature over 1,000 artists representing over 140 different countries.

Films aren’t the only thing on display at the festival, which has had strong theatre and music segments over its previous two runs. Dance and visual arts also form part of the festivities with exhibitions, performances and workshops.

The last edition, which ran from October 30 to December 7, had more than 800 artists from 102 countries displaying their work in Karachi.

The extensive film lineup for the 37-day festival included Pakistan’s Dukhtar and The Glass Worker, Spain’s Los Tigres and Glimmers, Polish feature Home and Italy’s Paper heart.

Other highlights of the festival were its many plays and grand weekly concerts and dance nights.

In an open letter to the province’s senior minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, the actor contended that many moviegoers are busy with other things earlier in the day, so some audiences were “only able to attend screenings later in the evenings”.

Mustafa said that since many cinemas in the province were located inside malls — which close at 8pm under austerity measures taken in view of a global fuel crisis triggered by the Iran-US/Israel war — they were also operating on shortened schedules. “The early closure is affecting recently released films that are relying on this period to reach audiences,” he said.

The actor said a “modest” extension in operating hours would “increase ticket sales”, “support employment across the exhibition and hospitality sectors” and “provide greater access and convenience for audiences”.

Mustafa appreciated the Punjab government for its “support for the film industry,” including initiatives like CM Maryam Nawaz’s Film City plan for Lahore. He requested the government to support the creative sector once more with a “small relaxation” in cinema timings, something that would be “appreciated by filmmakers, exhibitors and cinemagoers alike”.

The actor’s film Zombeid premiered on Eidul Azha and is playing in theatres nationwide. The film was one of three Pakistani movies released over Eid last week, competing for screen space limited by the restrictions in timings — which were relaxed temporarily for the holiday.

Any easing of these restrictions would allow these films more space to reach audiences.

The debate gained momentum after leading actor Deepika Padukone reportedly exited a major project last year over a demand for shorter working hours following motherhood, thrusting the issue of work-life balance into the spotlight in India’s film industry.

Bollywood has long been known for punishing schedules, with shifts often stretching from 12 to 18 hours and, at times, continuing for more than a day during intensive shoots.

But what was once accepted as the norm is now being questioned, with growing calls for humane working conditions and limits on daily hours.

Supporters of reform say the current system disproportionately puts pressure on women, who often face being labelled pushy or difficult — a stigma rarely attached to male stars.

A number of actors, including Suniel Shetty, Kajol and Ram Kapoor, have backed the push for healthier boundaries, arguing that established stars should be able to set limits on working hours.

“Once you have achieved success in showbiz… then, yes, you are in a position to choose how many hours you want to work,” Kapoor told AFP, reflecting a view that bargaining power in the industry remains tied to status.

Others, however, warn that the fluid nature of filmmaking makes rigid eight-hour shifts “unreal” to enforce on mega-budget sets.

Poor planning

“This is not like a corporate job,” said actor Ali Fazal, pointing to the varying demands of projects, particularly action-heavy or technically complex productions.

Actor Chitrangda Singh echoed that argument, citing several variables such as weather disruptions and equipment failures that can derail tightly planned schedules.

“Filmmaking is also driven by business realities,” she said.

Industry insiders highlight the steep costs involved in large productions, where locations, crew and equipment can cost more than $26,000 per day, creating pressure to maximise shooting time.

Former Cine & TV Artistes’ Association official Amit Behl said filmmakers often cannot afford to halt shoots midway, especially when a large crew or elaborate action sequences are involved.

“The bungalow in which Animal (an action blockbuster) was shot cost 25 lakh rupees ($26,300) a day rental,” said Behl.

“Then you have to prop it up with junior artistes, which is an additional expenditure besides catering, electricity, vanity vans and bouncers.”

But critics argue that such explanations often mask poor planning and systemic inefficiencies, placing the burden of long hours on cast and crew.

Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur criticised what he called a hierarchy that prioritises top actors over technicians, saying work-life balance should apply to all on the set.

“Everyone (should have) the privilege to define the hours they want to work,” he told AFP.

Workaholic

The controversy has also highlighted disparities within the industry, where junior artistes and crew often have little negotiating power.

For many, the recent debate marks a broader shift in Bollywood, with younger professionals and established stars alike beginning to challenge the long-standing norms.

Yet opinions remain divided.

“I have seen Shah Rukh Khan on sets working 27 hours non-stop when he had to complete a scene. He doesn’t need to do it,” Behl said, referring to the Bollywood superstar.

“But you can’t leave a scene mid-way… if it is an action scene where fighters are involved, anything can happen… it is not like shutting a laptop and working for an IT company.”

Some veterans, like actor Madhuri Dixit, frame the issue as a personal choice rather than a structural problem.

“We did a 12-hour shift or maybe more every day for Mrs Deshpande,” she told AFP, mentioning the 2025 crime thriller.

“But if a woman wants to work (fewer) hours, that is her prerogative, her life… more power to her. To each his own, I’m a workaholic!”

The endless yellow hallways of A24’s Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, terrified tens of thousands of people in its opening weekend to rack up $118 million at the box office.

And Focus Features film Obsession, directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, has taken in $148 million worldwide in two weeks — a smash hit for a production that cost $750,000.

“It’s a huge, huge success and a real turning point for the industry, potentially,” said associate editor Matthew Frank of The Ankler, a digital media company that covers Hollywood.

“They’re breaking out with these films that are appealing to a younger demographic,” Frank said, adding that the vast majority of ticket buyers the past couple weekends “have been under 35 and even, you know, under 25. So it’s appealing to this demographic [that] normally doesn’t really get spoken to.”

In recent years multiplexes have faced a multi-fold decline, fueled by the rise of streaming, a lag in recovery in ticket sales since Covid, and the strikes that halted production in Hollywood in 2023.

But this year’s numbers are drumming up optimism for the best year since the pandemic.

This is thanks in part to Generation Z, which boosted the box office by 25 per cent last year, according to a report from the National Research Group.

Theatre owners are “ecstatic about these weekends,” said Ronnie Yount, owner of the Phoenix Theatres chain in the Midwest.

Yount compared both films to Lilo & Stitch for driving box office — which seemed unthinkable.

Franchise fails

The trick to tapping into the younger market is to “deliver the right films,” Frank said.

“Hollywood’s problem, for a while, was saying, ‘oh, it’s young people,’ when in fact it was because they were making the 10th (installment in) pre-existing franchises that were popular for their parents.”

The safe bets from studios that hoped to cash in on an endless slate of summer action hero movies turned off younger audiences.

“When you make something that’s for that audience, that’s when they’ll come out,” Frank said.

Parsons, who is known to his 3.2 million subscribers as Kane Pixels on YouTube, has racked up more than 300 million views.

The inspiration for Backrooms came from a photo posted to an internet forum in 2019 showing, without context, a yellow space.

Parsons, then a teenager, told AFP that he saw the image as a “vaguely nostalgic and vaguely dreamlike but also very tangible science-fiction concept.”

His YouTube video of a young man lost in terrifying corridors amassed millions of views in a matter of days, and led to a contract with A24.

His endless nightmare is now on the big screen, starring Oscar-nominated actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve.

Barker went from an audience of 1.1 million subscribers on his channel That’s a Bad Idea to premiering Obsession at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025.

The movie follows the horrifying consequences after a young man’s wish comes true, and the target of his romantic attention begins to love him more than anything else in the world.

Frank said very production company and studio in Hollywood right now is asking: “How can we replicate this?”

“Not just because they’re huge successes, but they’re also made for these limited budgets.”

But he warned it’s not just about finding successful YouTubers.

“It still requires just finding the great filmmakers, which can come anywhere.”

Although far from entertaining, it is by far the most interesting scene in a film that starts from nowhere, dawdles aimlessly, chooses to tell half a story, and ends with a “To Be Continued” bumper.

One can’t help but feel that story writer, director and producer Imran Malik is insisting that the remaining, presumably better half, rests in a sequel. A sequel that may never come to pass.

When one views the film in that context, can one really blame the lead character for being sad?

For the purposes of the story, we learn the source of Zarshaan’s sorrow through low-quality, AI-rendered flashbacks. His parents (Usman Peerzada and Saba Hameed) were researchers who had everything — money, a mansion, and a thriving business in Thailand — but lost it all thanks to a bad investment.

In one atrocious AI flashback, we see them perishing in a highway accident. Zarshaan, being the driver, is ridden with guilt. Or is he?

Penniless, sensible and cheerful enough when not sad — though we never quite understand why a grown man chooses wallowing over taking charge of his life despite his hardships — he helps a disabled boy retrieve a kite. At the end of the kite-chase he ends up — again, with AI-assisted inserts — in an apartment where several young women live.

Presumably an astute, worldly-wise young man (probably because Saeed plays him that way), he fails to notice that there is something off about these women.

For starters, they have no elders in the house, dress conspicuously and strut home late at night from parties, claiming that they’re coming from a shrine. They’re also scared of the law — when sirens blare, they scramble to hide beneath the bed.

It is revealed late in the film (insert dull surprise here) that they are prostitutes. The film chooses to call them ‘Tawaiafs’. Given that he is from Thailand — a country where prostitution thrives with a $6 to $8 billion annual turnover — it is hard to excuse his naivety, or the screenplay’s insistence upon it.

As was bound to happen, our hero falls somewhat in love with Billo (Mamya Shajaffar), the spunky, wide-eyed heroine who doesn’t blink.

“Somewhat” is the operative word here. There is no build-up to the romance, even when 70 per cent of the film unfolds within the confines of two sets that function as Zarshaan’s perpetually messy apartment. The very apartment whose room he rents to the two women.

While the audience tries to make sense of the relationship between the two leads, three side-tracks are shoehorned into the running narrative.

The first is the comic relief, Sardar Happy Singh (Rana Ijaz) — a good-hearted, lascivious sleaze-bag who befriends Zarshaan and then asks him to spy on his cheating wife (Happy, by the way, was cheating on her as well).

The second track involves Sureet (Mehrunisa Iqbal), a Hindu girl abducted at a young age and forced into prostitution. Like Happy’s track, this does not fit naturally into the narrative.

The third — and just as ill-fitting as the other two — features the eternally, manically happy villain (Tabrez Khan), who lives off the prostitutes’ earnings. Apparently a pretty big deal, this unhinged bad guy is never given scenes that establish who he really is or what makes him tick.

These scattered ideas — one cannot even call them a fully mapped-out story — lumber along until the pacing collapses under its own weight. Then the unthinkable happens: screenwriter Wajid Zuberi and Malik flip the script 180 degrees by introducing Babar Ali.

Ali plays one of Luv Di Saun’s two “other” heroes. He is the bodyguard of a billionaire (Rashid Khwaja) searching for his empire’s heir.

No points for guessing that Billo is the heir. After all, as she herself says in a scene, she always felt she didn’t quite belong in the life she was living, even though she is often seen having a ball.

The other “other” hero enters just before the climax: Humayun Saeed. Pakistani cinema’s unassailable superstar plays an unassailable Dabangg-style police officer who holds a tasbeeh in his killer hands. The man frees kidnapped women, looks up to the Almighty for permission, and then saves Zarshaan after he is beaten to a pulp.

By now, Luv Di Saun has thrown Farhan Saeed’s character to the sidelines, abandoning the idea of a simple wrong-side-of-the-tracks love story and replacing it with a plot-line that makes little to no sense.

And yet the film is still not over. The aforementioned “To Be Continued” bumper hits the viewer like a sledgehammer, alluding to a far bigger story that’s left up in the air. A story worth, perhaps, 10 minutes of screen time.

One fails to see the bigger picture here. For a good two and a half hours, the audience is forced to accept an unmapped half-picture — one that is amateurishly edited, badly sound-designed, and constricted to a few sets — only to be told that even this minuscule story has been left incomplete.

One wonders if Luv Di Saun is worse than Imran Malik’s last film, Azaadi, starring Moammar Rana and Sonya Hussyn. It is definitely better acted — though only because of Saeed, who is on-screen for 80 per cent of the runtime; it is also better shot (the director of photography is Syed Faisal Bukhari), and has a decent song or two. But these few qualities do not equate to a better experience.

For the most part, the long running time desperately tries to build characters. Both Zarshaan and Billo have scenes that could have added dimension and emotional resonance; instead, they feel fake and superficial. After a while, the entire exercise grows repetitive.

Being boring is the least of Luv Di Saun’s problems, though. The bigger issue is its failure to figure out its own story — and without a story brimming with passion, conviction, conflict, and forward momentum, what is left in a film other than wasted hours?

She also posted a note on the subject thanking her friends, family and well-wishers, asking them not to share unverified information about her.

Rumours circulating on the internet claimed Syed had died, with fans grieving the loss of a titan of Pakistani music. Naturally, when they reached the singer herself, she addressed the situation by talking to her fans personally.

“I have come to know that rumours are being spread about my health. I am absolutely fine, by the grace of God. I am living a really good life in New York. Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes,” Syed said.

The written statement read, “I have come to learn that false reports of my passing are being circulated on social media. These are not true. Alhamdulillah, I am alive, well and in good health. I request everyone not to share this false news and to help correct the misinformation wherever it appears. Thank you.”

She wrote she was “deeply touched by the concern, kindness, and affection shown by the many people who reached out to me after seeing these reports”.

Designer Hassan Sheheryar Yasin also helped dispel the rumours by posting a picture of the singer and saying she was “alive, well and in good health”. Bushra Ansari posted Syed’s video message to her own account.

The internet occasionally likes to kill people off before their time. Most recently, Indian actor Dharmendra was declared dead by Indian media during a hospitalisation in November. He was alive and passed away a couple of weeks later.

In Pakistan, actor Sakina Samo was rumoured to have succumbed to Covid-19 at the height of the 2020 pandemic. She is still alive and well, having recovered from the virus after a stint of self-isolation.

Piker, a streamer on Twitch with over three million followers, was set to speak on a panel titled How the American Left Learned to Speak the Internet. His uncle Uygur, host of the online news show The Young Turks, was set to speak on Techno-Feudalism is Here. Who Are the Lords?.

Both have been vocal in their opposition to Israel after the country launched its devastating war on Gaza in 2023, which a UN report termed a genocide. Almost 73,000 people have since been killed in the occupied territory.

Representatives of the Home Office confirmed to Variety that both of their Electronic Travel Authorisations (ETAs) were revoked “on the grounds that their presence in the UK may not be conducive to the public good”. The representatives said to refuse or cancel an ETA on these grounds is based solely on an assessment of the potential risk an individual may pose to UK society.

Uygur decried the step as “oppression” in a post on X, saying he had been “banned from the UK” when he was set to go and speak at events in London and Oxford.

Piker quoted the post in his own, saying his visa had also been revoked. The streamer said the West was “betraying liberal values for a genocidal fascist foreign government”.

SXSW also issued a statement acknowledging two of its speakers had had their travel permissions revoked, but said the event remains committed to its spirit of dialogue.

A spokesperson for the event said, “We are aware that Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker are unable to travel to the UK following a decision by the Home Office. Decisions on entry to the UK are a matter for the Home Office and the individuals concerned. SXSW London’s role is to convene a broad range of diverse voices and perspectives. We remain focused on delivering a programme this week fostering open dialogue and exchange of ideas and featuring more than 800 speakers, artists and screenings.”

The acting was fine, the plot was fine, the visuals were fine. Everything was just fine.

As a zombie media aficionado, I’ve seen just about every zombie TV show and movie there is to watch on Netflix and beyond. I love the genre. There’s something about how a zombie apocalypse changes human nature that I love examining. But there was none of that here.

The zombie lore was quite basic — the virus spreads through an extremely predictable mechanism. The zombies are sensitive to sound, but not the smell of human flesh. There is, of course, a final zombie boss who is extremely pumped up on steroids and revenge and lacks the singular flesh-eating motivation the other zombies have… inadvertently raising questions about how that came to be.

I guess that’s one of the most obvious plot holes here for me — and let me tell you, I’m not great at identifying plot holes, I usually like to turn my brain off and watch movies. I enjoy being entertained. Was I entertained? Mildly. Would I watch it again? Nah.

Anyway, now that you have some context, let me talk about the film a bit more. It’s directed by Nabeel Qureshi and Fizza Ali Meerza. They’ve both teamed up with Fahad Mustafa and Mehwish Hayat on at least four other films. The first of these films was Na Maloom Afraad (2014), which I also saw in the cinema, though Hayat only had a cameo appearance in a highly controversial item number. They both starred as leads in their next film together, Actor In Law. What both of these films got really right was the way you could tell they were shot in Karachi because the city was a main character.

Unfortunately, despite Zombeid being advertised as Pakistan’s first zombie thriller, there’s very little in terms of visuals that suggests the film was shot in a recognisable Pakistani city. That was probably the biggest let down for me. After watching a clever promo on Geo News (the film was produced by GeoFilms) where these two anchors go through a rundown of the daily headlines while zombies ravage the office behind them, I was really pumped to witness a zombie apocalypse within a local context.

Instead, most of the movie is centred around an unrecognisable, ugly, concrete block of a gym called Muscle Factory allegedly located in Karachi’s DHA Phase 8 but which may as well be floating in the ether for all we know. Hayat is Zara, a Zumba instructor at the gym, and Mustafa is Wali, a former Mr Pakistan winner whose bodybuilding career was cut short by injury. He asks for a job at the gym and is given a chance to get back into the fitness industry after some time away.

The bane of his existence is Marwan, his former bodybuilding partner, trained by the same (now-dead) ustaad. Marwan was disqualified from the Mr Pakistan competition because his drug test showed he’d been taking steroids. Since then, the man appears to have made it his mission to peddle steroids indiscriminately to insecure looksmaxxers at the gym. Interestingly, it was here that I began wondering… is Zombeid deeper than I’m giving it credit for?

Is it perhaps a commentary on the culture of commodifying and modifying our bodies, making them appear sculpted and perfect for the gazes of others looking at us through their phones? Is it suggesting that the ground zero of this culture are the gyms and bodybuilding competitions of the world? Could it be proposing that such a culture spreads like a virus through proximity to others who are infected with it? Are we all becoming mindless zombies, obsessed with looking a certain way, performing for others’ gazes a certain way?

I didn’t allow my thoughts to go any deeper than this because I thought I may be handing the filmmakers too much credit. There isn’t much else that pointed to any deep-seated motivations behind making this film.

Anyway, as you may have guessed by now, the virus is spread through a trial steroid that Marwan starts injecting desperate looksmaxxers with. What happens next is that the gym becomes infested with zombies. Of course, our leads all remain bite-free for most of the film. There are the usual shenanigans – sneaking around to find a way out of the gym, almost getting bitten, an influencer ludicrously going live to alert citizens about the situation in the gym, a police nafri that shows up hoping to bust a rave they can extort money and ‘confiscate’ drugs and booze from, and finally a throng of people gathering outside the gym, watching expectantly in exactly the way Karachiites hop over to Seaview the minute there’s a storm brewing. (There was a joke about this in the movie too, by the way.)

I won’t tell you how it ends, but I will say I enjoyed the little jokes and allusions to Karachi and Pakistani culture in the movie. The jokes were very current and cleverly written — for instance, there was one about “Strait of Hormones”. Ironically, there are scenes during Wali and Zara’s courtship where they watch a zombie movie in the cinema and then another where they get frisky while playing a zombie shooter game. The chemistry between the leads was good — after all the projects they’ve done together, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.

I enjoyed the character of Zara just a little bit more than Wali. Mustafa tends to play the same kind of guy again and again — a sensitive softboi underdog with something to prove. I’m not saying he’s not good at it, but it would be cool to see him in a different role at some point. The visuals of him buffed up as a bodybuilder were hard to stomach though — they definitely looked like his head had been superimposed onto an AI-generated body. I’m not sure how much AI was used in the making of this film, but I’m not a fan of the use of AI in creative disciplines. Why don’t we just save it for things that human beings DON’T want to do?

Overall, I’d give the film a solid 6.5/10. Go watch it with your friends and family and enjoy the jokes. It’s no worse than spending the evening Netflix and chilling at home — and hopefully you’ll get to collectively bond over the experience. Isn’t that what cinema is about, after all?

In a Facebook post on Monday, the actor asked why such an idea was even being entertained, especially when many other women-centric stories exist that could be put on TV to motivate and inspire audiences instead.

In response to reports Saba Qamar was set to star in the project as Anmol herself, Abbasi said it was guaranteed that she would “perform so well that people will fall in love”.

He said Qamar’s earlier project Case No. 9 was a “fantastic drama” that left a “positive impact” on audiences that watched it. He said even he was inspired by the legal thriller that raised much-needed awareness on harassment and the avenues available to survivors seeking justice.

Abbasi questioned why she was then being used to portray such a negative character. He said he didn’t agree with the idea of popularising Anmol’s story by using Qamar’s fame, or anyone else’s.

The filmmaker argued that if the story had to be told, cinema would have proved a more appropriate vehicle as audiences have greater choice in what movies they watch and with whom. He said beaming the story of a criminal into living rooms with young girls watching was “tricky”.

Abbasi decried the drama as an opportunistic ploy to capitalise on the virality of Anmol’s case and said he knew the people behind the idea. He also said he wasn’t earning any favours with them by asking such questions, but that didn’t worry him. “I already am not in their good sacred books anyway,” he said.

The filmmaker was responding to reports a biographical drama serial based on Anmol’s life was in the works at 7th Sky Productions. Alongside Qamar, Case No. 9’s writer Shahzeb Khanzada is reportedly joining the project to write the script.

True-crime entertainment has been somewhat of a hot topic in Pakistan, with some previous attempts being struck down. In recent years, the film Javed Iqbal: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer was denied a nationwide cinematic release in 2022. The film finally reached audiences on Wednesday with a release on YouTube.

“Suman ji died at around 8pm at her residence in Lokhandwala due to old age. She died peacefully. Over the last few days, she had been listening to her own songs,” Mangala Khadilkar, who wrote the acclaimed Marathi biography Suman Sugandh on the singer, told the Press Trust of India.

The singer rose to fame in the 1960s and 70s, she was known across the subcontinent for her film tracks such as ‘Aajkal Tere Mere Pyar Ke Charche’ from Brahmachari (1968), ‘Na Na Karte Pyar’ from Jab Jab Phool Khile (1965) and ‘Tumne Pukara Aur Hum Chale Aaye’ from Rajkumar (1964).

During the course of her career, she sang 740 songs in 11 different languages, including 140 duets with Mohammed Rafi — another legend of Indian music. Beyond film music, her repertoire included bhajans, ghazals, and thumris.

Kalyanpur’s soft vocals were often compared to Lata Mangeshkar — arguably the biggest name in Bollywood playback singing — with many listeners confusing the two.

Kalyanpur always dismissed the comparison. In a 2022 interview, she called Mangeshkar a close friend.

“Everyone loved her songs and she will remain immortal. We recorded a duet together for the film Chaand. Every time I met her, it felt like meeting a close friend. I believe she felt the same,” she said.

Tributes poured in for the singer, including from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who sent condolences to her family and said he was “anguished” by her passing.

“Her melodious voice and soulful renditions enriched our cultural world. Through her songs, she created a special place among music lovers and admirers of Indian cinema,” He said.

Kalyanpur is survived by her daughter Charu. Her last rites will be performed in Mumbai on Monday (today).

Cover photo: Press Information Bureau / Government of India

At the historic Chinese Theatre, where Monroe’s handprints are immortalised alongside Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) co-star Jane Russell, fans plan to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ — echoing her famed sultry serenade to president John F Kennedy.

One hundred roses and a cake will be placed at the site, a symbol of Hollywood’s golden age and a popular tourist hotspot.

Tributes to Tinseltown’s legendary daughter began on Sunday, with the Academy Museum opening Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon, an exhibit celebrating her film career and life cut short.

After shooting to superstardom in the 1950s, the actress and model died of an overdose at her Brentwood home in August 1962, aged 36.

The Academy Museum will host special screenings of her prolific filmography throughout the month, including The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Niagara (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Misfits (1961).

The exhibit, which runs until February 2027, includes hundreds of original pieces, some rarely on display — such as Monroe’s famed pink dress worn during her iconic performance of ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Later in the week, on June 4, Julien’s Auctions will put nearly 200 pieces of Monroe memorabilia under the hammer as part of its special 100 Years of Marilyn sale.

The items include unpublished photographs, a script with notes from her final production, the unfinished short film Something’s Got to Give, and personal items such as handwritten recipes and her Elizabeth Arden lipstick.

Image maker

Born in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926, Monroe had an unstable childhood spent between orphanages and foster homes. She married for the first time at age 16.

She had her first brush with show business in 1944, while working in a factory, when a photographer arrived to capture photos of women working on production lines during World War II.

Launching into the world of modelling soon after, she divorced her husband and made a history-defining decision: dyeing her brown hair platinum blonde.

She landed her first contract with Fox, and by the age of 30 had established herself as a global star.

Behind the scenes, Monroe founded her own production company, attended the prestigious Actors Studio in New York, and even defied the studios.

In the 1950s, while under contract with 20th Century Fox, she refused to act in the adaptation of the musical The Girl in Pink Tights, deeming the script mediocre and her salary — three times less than that of co-star Frank Sinatra — unfair.

More than half a century before the #MeToo movement shook the global entertainment industry, Monroe denounced the Hollywood “wolves” preying on female talent.

However, Psycho doesn’t fully lean into any genre or theme at all. The film hovers on the edges of psychological thriller, horror and comedy, but ends up using the most cliche elements of all to create a collection of scenes that are structured without a storyline.

Let’s talk about the elements of horror in the film. We see a woman dancing in a short, gold sequinned dress; a scene that is supposed to alert the viewers that she is not mentally well. There’s blood-soaked faces and bodies and many fight scenes. We get many murders and hangings. A huge array of crime happens. None of that, unfortunately, makes it horror.

The primary facet of horror is the shock factor. If done right, horror should make you want to turn away but it should be so captivating that you simply cannot look away. The gore in this film makes you want to look away but you do not care enough to want to keep watching. That’s why the film feels so drawn out.

Horror needs an element of mundanity. If we cannot relate to the characters in some shape or form, it is hard to be scared of — or for — them. In Psycho, the characters are not fleshed out. You cannot find yourself worrying about two-dimensional characters, but that’s all we get here.

The film centres around two romantic couples, both of whom have large age gaps, which makes you question the casting choices. We have Javed Sheikh (71) paired with Meera (49), and Shaan Shahid (55) paired with Sonya Hussyn (29). I was hoping the age differences would be used to drive a point home about age-gap love stories, instead, the film tries hard to pretend that the couples are in similar age groups. At a time when misogyny and ageism are rampant in our society and women are considered too old past their 30s, it was frustrating to see these pairings, no matter how refreshing it was to see someone in his 70s dance and sing in love.

It was different enough from the usual stereotypes of romance being reserved for people in their 20s or 30s. However, it was hard not to notice the age gap between Sheikh and Meera in those scenes specifically.

Overall, in terms of romantic scenes, the film tries to normalise physical affection in married couples, which was a good step forward. But when things go wrong, the same couples turn to violence against each other.

The basic premise of the film, from what I could decipher — even though the premise and the plot seem to be hidden far beyond what the naked eye could see — is about a mentally-ill woman, perhaps even psychotic. But we don’t get any background or context for why she acts that way. All the cliches of a ‘mad’ person get translated through Meera’s character.

The promotions for the film have widely discussed mental health as a key theme that the film explores. So, going into the theatre, I was hoping to see some conversation-sparking characters and themes that could advance mental health care in the country. However, it was disappointing to see that the mentally ill character was just a caricature. She didn’t get a background story and there was no context for why she acted that way.

For a film that promised to shed light on mental health, it did the opposite. The story, if there was one, just reinforced the idea that mentally ill people are dangerous and need to be ‘eradicated’ from society. After the film ended, I was left wondering: why couldn’t the mentally ill woman get a redemption arc similar to the one every man in the film somehow seemed to get? Even the big bad is killed in a dramatic scene that might make you feel bad for him.

If the caricature of a psychotic person wasn’t enough, the film also employs jokes in poor taste, introducing a character who is called “gay” for acting feminine and openly called a “khusra” as a joke. The transphobic slur is used to instil comedic undertones, or at least that’s what the intention seems to be.

In the opening scene of the film, a rape trial is used to introduce the two lawyers. Sara, played by Hussyn, is fighting for the rape victim, and Salman, played by Shahid, is defending the accused. Other than the court scene being unrealistically dramatic, all seems normal until we find out that the two lawyers are in a long-term romantic relationship.

That reveal highlighted the film creators’ ignorance towards the sensitivity of rape trials. Using a rape trial to establish how ‘cool’ the defendant’s lawyer is was something I did not expect to see in 2026. Our drama industry has seen huge advances in terms of sensitivity towards such issues in recent times, but it seems like our films are still stuck in the pre-woke era where rape was just a plot device, not a life-altering incident for the victim.

In the absence of plot and character-building, the viewer would hope to see at least some good dialogue, which we were also deprived of throughout the film. We see some good acting from the big names here but their acting skills are not enough to make up for the lack of storytelling.

There was so much potential to create a film that could spark real conversations on mental health, especially in our society where we clearly lack awareness regarding mental illness, but the creators chose to depict the same stereotypes that typify mentally ill people as insane and dangerous.

The duo’s project was the only one selected from Pakistan and took home one of four prizes at the event, with the other three going to Indian films. Other titles in the running were from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The Emergency Exit is based on the experiences of people living in Parachinar, a war-weary city in Pakistan’s northwest close to the border with Afghanistan. Both filmmakers are Parachinar natives, so the subject matter is deeply personal to them.

A press release from the two directors said the film “explores how ordinary people continue living amid uncertainty, closely observing daily life, relationships, routines, and the quiet resilience of communities trying to hold onto hope while navigating disrupted realities”.

In an Instagram post on the film, Batool described the documentary as one she made “with a heavy heart and open eyes”. She dedicated it to “those who have suffered, waited for peace, and endured the shadows of war”.

The teaser for the film is the best clue to its haunting ethos, featuring a child around 10 to 12 years old being asked why he isn’t afraid of war.

With the expression of a man who had resigned himself to fate, this child answered, “[If] a missile will come, it will come. And if it hits this house, then what? At most, we will die.”

The Kathmandu Doc Lab brought together a diverse group of young filmmakers from South Asia for mentorship and workshops from industry professionals. Mentors at the festival included Pakistan’s Anam Abbas — of In Flames fame — Bhutan’s Arun Bhattarai and India’s Sarvnik Kaur.

Think of the craziest Bollywood action scene, something like Salman Khan pushing off a whole gang of thugs by force of his upper back alone or Ajay Devgn single-handedly — as in, with one hand — catching a flying ruffian mid-air and spinning him around like the world’s most buff pizza chef.

Now, replace those guys with Faysal Quraishi, with his wardrobe alternating between a police uniform and some stylish kurtas.

From what we can tell, this is a classic tale of a righteous hero fighting crime and taking names. Naturally, he also has a romantic side to him, brought out by Quraishi’s co-lead and the film’s producer Hareem Farooq.

She’s presumably how we get the film’s title too. In a scene, she looks at Quraishi’s lovestruck character and tells him his name should be “Mango Jutt”. When the blushing cop asks why, she replies, “Tu mittha vi ay, te sohna vi (You’re both sweet and pretty).”

Did we mention Quraishi tears some guy’s thumb off midway through the teaser? There are also a few dances peppered in to balance everything out.

While the teaser didn’t come with a release date, the video closed with the message, “Not just the mangoes, Jutt is coming too,” which leads us to believe they could be aiming for a summer release.

An earlier Instagram post from Shamoon Abbasi credited Abu Aleeha as the film’s director and said shooting had already wrapped up.

Her surfaces are layered, with forms emerging and receding through controlled yet expressive brushwork. A tension persists between clarity and obscurity: faces are partially withheld, bodies cropped or multiplied, gestures interrupted. This withholding becomes central to her visual syntax, inviting the viewer not to resolve the image, but to inhabit its ambiguity.

For her solo exhibition ‘Locus: Where Eyes Settle’ at Karachi’s Chawkandi Art Gallery, the artist has displayed only six paintings, yet each carries a striking sense of intensity and conceptual weight. The exhibition focuses on surveillance, gendered labour and Karachi’s masculine-coded public spaces, examining how women navigate sites shaped by water politics and ecology. Reimagining female presence in male-centric environments such as dhabas in Ibrahim Hyderi Fishing Village, Rahman employs surveillance as a critical lens.

Her engagement with the female form is particularly significant. Rather than presenting it as fixed or symbolic, she treats it as fluid and psychological rather than merely physical. In doing so, she sidesteps the didacticism that can accompany gendered representation, offering instead a more introspective reading of selfhood. The ‘alternate selves’ implied in her work are less about spectacle and more about instability — about the shifting, often contradictory conditions of being.

Amna Rahman’s striking artworks capture women within spaces shaped by labour, surveillance and masculine power

One painting, set within a dhaba, is perhaps the most overtly theatrical. Horizontally stretched, almost cinematic, it stages a compressed space where two central seated women disrupt an otherwise all-male environment. Rahman, who photographs such situations first, says the men were all watching a movie on television. Their frontal, steady gaze anchors the composition, while the surrounding men glance obliquely, their attention fragmented and unsettled. The politics of looking becomes central: the women’s composure contrasts with the men’s quiet curiosity. Subtle shifts in body language — folded arms, turned torsos — heighten this tension. A muted palette of dusty blues, ochres and greys reinforces the claustrophobic interior, while everyday details ground the scene in a recognisable socio-economic milieu. The result is a social rupture — a reordering of space and power.

In contrast, another painting presents a female driver seated within the richly ornamented cabin of what is revealed to be a water tanker. This environment, deeply coded as male within South Asian visual culture, is re-occupied with quiet authority. The woman is neither symbolic nor decorative, as she appears entirely at ease, absorbed and in control. The interior, dense with textiles, tassels and painted motifs, echoes the language of truck art but with painterly restraint. Light enters through an open window, yet the psychological focus remains inward. Her posture suggests both comfort and readiness, while her contemplative expression introduces a subtle tension. This is not a simplified image of empowerment but an exploration of presence — of occupying space without spectacle.

A third painting expands into a coastal setting, depicting a boat crowded with fishermen, workers and a centrally placed woman. The composition is more open, yet the atmosphere is heavy and subdued. The overcast sky and muted palette evoke fatigue and introspection. The woman, standing slightly apart, looks outward, as if registering a horizon beyond the frame. The boat becomes a metaphor: precarious, collective, suspended between survival and uncertainty. Nets, ropes, and tools are rendered with care, reinforcing the materiality of labour.

Together, these works, alongside the remaining three equally potent canvases, form a concise yet powerful body of work. Rahman is not merely documenting environments — she is re-inscribing them through gendered presence. Women emerge not as anomalies but as catalysts, subtly altering the emotional and social dynamics of each scene. Despite the richness of detail, the paintings resist romanticisation, operating instead through stillness, gaze and relational tension. Figures are caught in moments of waiting, watching or thinking. These states are rarely foregrounded in depictions of working-class life.

Ultimately, what binds these paintings is a persistent question: who belongs where? And, more crucially, who gets to look, and who is looked at?

‘Locus: Where Eyes Settle’ was on display at Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi, from April 21-30, 2026

Originally published in Dawn, EOS, May 24th, 2026

Justice Muhammad Sajid Mahmood Sethi issued an eight-page verdict, setting aside the trial court’s decision and directing the singer to deposit a fine of Rs100,000.

According to the judgment, Rahat Fateh had filed a civil suit in Faisalabad seeking confirmation of possession of a double-storey house. A civil court had issued a decree against him on May 14, 2019, following which he challenged the decision before the trial court.

However, the trial court dismissed the appeal on technical grounds due to non-payment of court fee amounting to Rs15,000. The singer later approached the LHC against the ruling.

The LHC observed that dismissing an appeal merely on the basis of non-payment of court fee was against the principles of justice. It noted that the petitioner had been given only four days to submit the fee, which was insufficient.

The judgment stated that the right to appeal is a valuable legal right and should not be denied solely because of technical defects. The court stressed that appeals should be decided on merit rather than on procedural shortcomings.

The LHC also directed the trial court to decide the appeal on merit within two months without unnecessary delay.

It ordered Rahat Fateh and all other parties to appear before the court on June 2.

Originally published in Dawn, May 30th, 2026

Of course, when half of a couple is singer Annural Khalid, the song has to be her own. That’s what ‘Falling4U’ is — a bride’s ode to her loving husband.

With Khalid’s signature soft vocals and an acoustic guitar forming much of the musical accompaniment, the song is mellow, calmingly so. The point, however, lies in the simple but meaningful lyrics.

As if describing her own struggles before getting married, Khalid starts her song with, “Bechayn kab se, hum hain baithay. Din raat kitaabon main, tujh ko dhoondain. (I have been sitting restless for so long. Day and night, I have searched for you in books).”

She goes on to describe the love she has for her husband Moeez, whose picture with the singer is front and centre on the album’s cover, with words like “behisaab (immeasurable)” and “beshumaar (uncountable)”.

Later, she says, “Chali jase hawain, dheemay dheemay, teri ore mujhe kyu yeh lay chalin? Jaisay, teray hi liye to main hoon bani. (As the winds blew gently, why did they push me in your direction? Like I was made for you).”

The evidently enamoured singer surprised fans in April with news of her wedding, which she sprung up on everyone with a black and white picture of her and Moeez’s hands captioned “Mr and Mrs”.

‘Falling4U’ is Khalid’s first release since tying the knot and a very fitting one at that. A promo for the song on Instagram had a montage of Moeez’s baby pictures and shots of them together. A message on the video read, “To my husband, for today and for every ordinary little day that turns extraordinary with you. And to our families… thank you for the love, softness and grace that we now carry forward.”

“We feel safe coming to this country for our faces,” said the Dubai-based consultant, one of millions of beauty enthusiasts now boosting South Korea’s tourism numbers and economy as they throng its thousands of skincare clinics.

But these days tourists like Zu seek treatments such as red light therapy or Botox to smooth out wrinkles, as well as ultrasound “skin lifting” to tighten jawlines, not just the nose jobs and double eyelid surgery of earlier years.

“The growth of foreign patients is outpacing that of foreign tourists,” said Hong Seung-wook, director of global healthcare business at the Korea Health Industry Development Institute. His department is tasked by the country’s health ministry to attract foreign patients.

Foreign visitors spend more on medical services

Just over two million foreigners visited South Korea last year for medical treatment, nearly double the 2024 figure of 1.17m, the health ministry said in April.

“We now see foreign tourists spend more on medical services than on tourism in Korea,” said Hong, adding that health authorities hoped to keep up the momentum by promoting services such as anti-ageing treatments to middle-aged visitors.

Zu, a former flight attendant who has visited South Korea at least six times, said she tended to pack several non-invasive treatments into a single trip.

That is a growing trend exemplified by hashtags such as “#koreaglowup”, popular among users of social media such as Instagram.

The major attractions are cost and South Korean expertise in beauty techniques that enables it to offer technologies and techniques often years ahead of those in the West.

Several visitors told Reuters that skincare treatments in South Korea could be as much as a fifth cheaper than those at home, while communication was not a problem, as many clinics employed multilingual coordinators.

“I like that there is a variety of K-beauty treatments in general that are not even offered in the US,” said Cindy Gu, a 30-year-old social media video editor from the United States.

She was waiting to undergo a facial lifting treatment at Lienjang, a beauty clinic in Seoul’s upscale Gangnam district.

Competition is key to affordability

Competition is the key to affordability, said Se-rin Lee, director of Lienjang’s aesthetic dermatology department, as there are so many beauty clinics in South Korea.

“The competition is pushing the prices of services down,” she said, adding that Lienjang’s foreign patients averaged about 100 a day, each with an average spend of about 1.5m won ($1,000).

About 15,000 clinics offer skincare treatments, mostly run by general practitioners rather than dermatologists, the Association of Korean Dermatologists says.

“Korea is doing a really great job in many areas, not only in skincare,” said Zu, adding that she was working on a project to deliver experiences for travellers to Korea and connect the country with the world. “Now my dream is to live here.”

Beran A, whose last name has not been made public in accordance with Austrian privacy rules, was arrested on August 7, 2024, the day before the first of three planned concerts by the US pop star in the Austrian capital.

All three dates were ​then cancelled, to the dismay of fans and of Swift, who wrote afterwards that it was “devastating.” While crowds of disappointed fans sang ​together in Vienna then to console themselves, neither Swift nor any Swifties appeared at the trial in Wiener Neustadt, a ⁠town south of the capital.

‘Sorry’ did not sway the jury

Beran A, who is Austrian, pleaded guilty to charges related to the planned attack, which ​carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He covered his face with a ring binder as he entered the courtroom to avoid ​being identifiable in pictures.

“I would just like to say that I am sorry,” he said in a final statement before the jury retired to deliberate.

It later found him guilty on almost all charges.

Beran A was found to have tried but failed to illegally buy weapons including a machine gun and hand grenade, and followed instructions in an Islamic State ​video entitled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom” to produce a small amount of the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP).

He was also accused of ​plotting with two school friends to carry out a solo attack earlier in 2024 in separate Middle Eastern cities. He and co-defendant Arda K admitted they travelled ‌to Dubai ⁠and Istanbul respectively to carry out attacks but then did not follow through.

When his trial opened last month, Beran A told the court that he roamed Dubai in March 2024 in search of victims to stab but had a panic attack when he tried to strike. Upon his return to Vienna, he resolved to go further and eventually chose the concert as his target.

He and Arda K denied providing moral support to the third man, who was ​arrested in Mecca on suspicion of ​stabbing a security official at ⁠the holy city’s Grand Mosque. He is still in custody in Saudi Arabia.

Defendant ‘burst into tears’

The eight-person jury found Beran A guilty by unanimous decision on all but two of 15 points put to it, including providing moral support to ​the third man. The two points on which he was found not guilty, both by a 6-2 margin, ​were lesser ones, ⁠dealing with issues like spreading IS propaganda.

While neither defendant showed much emotion in the courtroom, Beran A’s lawyer Anna Mair said that was not the case when they spoke privately.

“When he understood he had been found guilty in relation to Mecca, he burst into tears. I think that was simply because this ⁠big weight ​that these two years of being under investigation brought with them fell from his shoulders,” ​she told reporters.

Arda K was found guilty unanimously on all charges and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Both men’s lawyers said they had not yet decided whether to appeal.

He shared a clip from the show, which just dropped its second season on Thursday.

“Eid Mubarak from Deli Boys season 2 which just dropped,” he wrote in his caption, asking people to spot the “fake qawwal” in episode five.

In the clip, Sethi sings ‘Chaap Tilak’ while Poorna Jagannathan dances along.

We totally should have seen this coming, given how the soundtrack for Bait, Riz Ahmed’s new show on a British-Pakistani actor hoping to become the next James Bond, was a celebration of all things desi music.

The second season of the Hulu dark comedy Deli Boys, stars Asif Ali, Saagar Shaikh and Jagannathan, and has added five new names to its cast. Fred Armisen is set to join as a major character, which was announced back in August, Andrew Rannells and Kumail Nanjiani have been cast as recurring characters, while Robin Thede and Lilly Singh will be joining the show as guest stars.

Created by Abdullah Saeed, the show follows Pakistani-American brothers Mir and Raj Dar (Ali and Sheikh) who have lost everything and are now preparing to take over their father’s criminal empire.

The show, which received acclaim for its representation of Pakistani Americans and it’s comedic content, was renewed for its second season in August. The 10-episode first season — which includes a cameo by Pakistani fashion designer HSY — can be watched on Hulu and Disney+.

The list, which recognises 30 young people who have made a significant mark in their fields, is running its 11th edition this year, with a history of including the best and brightest of Pakistan in its annual rosters.

Aamir, Pakistan’s “most followed woman” on Instagram — she recently hit 20 million followers — has been recognised for her work as an actor. In her 10-year career, she has starred in a number of crowd-favourite dramas, including Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum and Meri Zindagi Hai Tu.

She’s also set to star in Pakistan’s first Netflix original, Jo Bachay Hain Sang Samait Lo.

The actor is also actively involved in social work, having been named UN Women’s National Goodwill Ambassador in October.

Kamraan is a filmmaker who isn’t afraid to talk about topics most Pakistanis wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole.

Her short film The Bed She Made was the only Pakistani work at the Busan International Short Film Festival this year. It addressed the link between climate change and fertility in a Pakistani context.

“Through its interplay of grace and violence, this metaphorical and highly symbolic film alternates between choreographic sequences and stark depictions of domestic oppression. By turning personal suffering into embodied outcry, it confronts the systemic silencing and abusive treatment of women in rigid patriarchal societies,” programmer Professor Sébastien Simon described her film in the catalogue for the festival.

Before making The Bed She Made, Kamraan was an assistant director on Umro Ayyar, one of Pakistan’s rare sci-fi feature films.

While Pakistani artists were notably absent from the 2025 list — javelin champ Arshad Nadeem was there to represent the country — they’ve had a marked presence in earlier years, with filmmaker Bushra Sultan making it onto the list in 2024.

Other honourees include Rastah founder Zain Ahmed (2022), music producer Abdullah Siddiqui and artist Misha Japanwala (2021) and singer Momina Mustehsan (2018).

It purported to be “Rooted in Pakistani myths and folklore”, which immediately made me think of the stories old servants used to tell in my childhood. In those days, they held my attention but, looking back, they just seemed to be bundles of nonsense. Now to have to read a whole book of similar stories was not going to be easy. As it turned out, I was wrong.

Maliha Rao, the author of Dark Tales of Wonder, is based in Karachi. She is a digital communications expert with two decades of experience in copywriting and brand storytelling. Some of her stories have been published in other anthologies. She has made horror her genre of choice and is a member of a thriving community of fantasy, horror and science fiction writers. Dark Tales of Wonder is made up of eight stories. The tales are short, concise and full of suspense. Almost from the first sentence, the reader knows something unacceptable and unexplainable is about to happen.

Interestingly, when supernatural activity is suspected, Rao’s characters turn towards Allah, but in oblique ways. The help of maulvis [clergymen] is sought, Zamzam holy water is sprinkled, tasbeehs [rosary beads] are rotated and the recitation of the Quran is listened to on phones. Rao states: “The world is full of impossible things.” This seems to be the common denominator of all the stories she writes. But even sceptical readers are hooked by the themes she explores and want to find out what transpires next.

A debut collection blends Pakistani folklore, supernatural beings and psychological dread into engrossing and suspenseful horror stories

In most cases, the demon, jinn or the otherworldly creature that is invading the mind and life of its prey is either huge in size or very small, like a dwarf. But all are frighteningly ugly and sometimes even emit a foul smell. The endings of the tales are also consistently the same. If it were not so, much greater tension could have been generated.

The first story, ‘The Rice Paddy’, features a man who has a genuine gift of engaging with the supernatural but, every time he exorcises an evil spirit, he feels depleted. His life is lonely and itinerant but he finally finds fulfilment when he helps a supernatural being wreak revenge.

In ‘Crumbs and Creatures’ we meet both a huge monster and a child-sized one, who both love eating biscuits. Before much harm is done, they are appeased and it is impressed upon the reader that every preternatural being is not malevolent. ‘The Wrath of the Boyo’ has only short-statured demons but they also love sugary stuff. When two preteen boys get into trouble with the boyo, it is a good spirit who saves them from harm and leaves her mark on one of them.

Small monsters who are lovers of sweets also make an appearance in ‘The Haunting of Taj.’ Here, the protagonist just wants to make sure that the hotel he has inherited remains financially viable. He neglects all warnings of supernatural presence in his single-minded endeavour to make the hotel regain its past glory. Only when he actually sees his daughter threatened by runty, dessert-gobbling demons does he become a believer. Again, in this story, it is two good spirits who help to save the young human girl.

Family dynamics come into play in the stories ‘It Lingers’ and ‘Unholy Ties.’ In the former, a family moves into a house with a dubious past and is confronted with strange happenings. Things disappear, lights dim of their own accord, and residents are attacked during sleep. Finally, a seer is brought into the picture to deal with the miasma invading their home. ‘Unholy Ties’ spins a really good yarn about a family which has gone through familial trauma and public censure. The daughter becomes possessed by an evil spirit that is egged on by a resentful relative. The final scene is satisfyingly gory.

These initial stories have minor errors in the syntax and in the narratives. Yet, the stories themselves are gripping and their plots are well-constructed.

The last two stories of the collection are written with a sure hand and flow smoothly from the author’s pen.

The first of the two, ‘Fear and Loathing in Karachi’, is centred round a young woman, Rania, who has been crippled psychologically because of a frightening experience in her adolescence. Ten years later she is still in treatment. Her two best friends manage to coax her to face her own demons and also the gigantic monster who threatens to annihilate all that she loves. Rao develops the character of Rania expertly and with a great deal of insight. The ending is ambiguous. Did Rania really kill the monster or did she slay the demons in her own mind and so find herself again?

The last story of the anthology is perhaps the best. It is beautifully conceptualised and executed. The plot is eminently believable and the characters are delineated unerringly. The hero, Aazer, could be someone we have known or, at least, met. His aspirations and his weaknesses are familiar to the reader and understandable, given the circumstances.

When he inadvertently becomes a victim of a female spirit, his family rallies round to assist him. The personage of the pir [holy man] whose help is sought to rid Aazer of the spirit is quite unique. Rao dispenses with the stock type of exorcist and introduces instead a character at once distinctive and interesting. The whiff of romance that begins to perfume the air at the end of the story just adds to the mastery of the writing.

Even unbelievers of the supernatural can enjoy this anthology. Every anecdote features the paranormal, but Rao makes sure to infuse each one with the right ingredients for a satisfying read. It is clear that she has taken pains over writing them and that the genre is close to her heart.

The author is to be congratulated for producing such an engrossing debut collection of stories.

Originally published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 24th, 2026

From summery yellows to cool lavenders, we love seeing fashion shine on Eid and this year is no different.

Lemon yellow

Hina Altaf chose a kurta shalwar set by Talha Batla in a butter yellow. The silk outfit was complemented by a pair of statement heels in green.

Kubra Khan also chose to wear yellow, though hers was a lighter shade. Her Wajahat Mansoor outfit featured sequined butterflies on the top and appeared to be paired with a sharara of the same colour.

Cool lavender

Amna Baber kept it simple in a lavender kurta from Cross Stich paired with an organza dupatta and wide-legged pants with lace detailing.

Maya Ali wore a lavender outfit from her own line featuring an almost-halter-top with silver detailing. The long kameez was paired with chooridar.

Sadaf Kanwal wore a floral lavender outfit from Faiza Saqlain. Her floral shirt was paired with a lavender shalwar and two-tone dupatta.

Baby pink

Areeba Habib wore a silky pink outfit by Erum Jamal. The kameez featured silver embroidery along the front, sides and sleeves, and Habib paired it with silver bangles and dramatic earrings.

Resham (and her niece) donned matching pink outfits by The Pink Tree Company. Their peshwas featured lavender and mint green blockprint patterns.

What were your favourite looks this year?

She shared a copy of the notice purportedly issued to Butt on her Instagram page, terming his legal notice dated May 22, “false, misconceived, mala fied, legally defective, and apparently issued with ulterior motives to pressurise, intimidate and silence my client after repeated acts of harassment committed by your client”. 

In his notice, Butt took issue with an interview in which Shajaffar described a costar’s behaviour while working on a project with her as having made her feel “uncomfortable”.

The notice referenced Shajaffar’s appearance on the YouTube show Say It All with Iffat Omar and claimed that she accused Butt of having “sexually harassed [her] on set”. In the interview, Shajaffar referred to the person solely as “Arsalan”. She later clarified on social media that she was not talking about Arslan Khan, her College Gate costar.

Butt’s connection to the incident is being attributed to Omar, the host, who purportedly said he was the one being discussed. Shajaffar’s interview with Omar was released on May 21. In it, the actor mentioned a number of instances in which “Arsalan’s” behaviour made her “feel uncomfortable” and that he believed she was “someone to get fresh or frank with”.

Butt’s notice described the allegations made by Shajaffar against “Arsalan” as “false, baseless, malicious and defamatory” and said they had caused “serious reputational damage, mental distress, humiliation and public embarrassment” to Butt.

The notice demanded Shajaffar “retract the allegations”, “take steps for the removal of the defamatory content”, “issue a clear, unconditional public apology and retraction” on YouTube and “refrain from repeating such allegations in the future”.

Her counter-notice denies the allegations made in Butt’s notice, “except what is specifically admitted herein”. “It is clarified that my client never made any false, fabricated or malicious allegation against your client. Whatever was stated by my client during the said interview/programme was based upon true events, actual conduct, personal experiences, surrounding circumstances and information supported through evidence, witnesses and electronic material presently in possession of my client. Your client is fully aware of his conduct and the repeated acts committed by him towards my client on various occasions,” reads Shajaffar’s notice. 

“The interview itself does not contain any direct or categorical statement alleging ‘sexual harassment’ in the specific manner falsely portrayed in your notice,” it read, saying that it “deliberately twists, exaggerates and misinterprets portions of the interview in an attempt to create unnecessary sensationalism and legal pressure”. 

Arguing that the interview reflects the actor’s “personal experiences and truthful disclosures” made by Shajaffar “in exercise of her lawful and constitutional right of expression and self-protection”, the notice calls Butt’s conduct “harassment, intimidation, emotional abuse and character targeting”.

“Instead of showing remorse and restraint, your client has now escalated the matter by issuing a threatening legal notice to a woman who merely disclosed her experiences publicly. Such conduct amounts to victim intimidation and an unlawful attempt to suppress disclosure of harassment-related conduct.”

According to the notice, Shajaffar possesses “substantial material, including but not limited to electronic evidence, digital communications and records, witness testimony, circumstantial and corroborative evidence and other supporting material which clearly establish the conduct, behaviour and repeated acts of harassment committed by [Butt] towards [Shajaffar] on multiple occasions”. 

The notice calls on Butt to immediately withdraw his notice, tender a “clear, unconditional and public apology” for “harassment, intimidation, reputational harm and malicious legal threats”, cease and desist from further harassment, intimidation, coercion, defamatory campaign or misrepresentation of the interview and Shajaffar’s statements, and pay compensation/damages amounting to Rs1 billion for reputational harm, mental agony, emotional distress, harassment, intimidation and damage.

Failure to comply within 14 days will result in civil, criminal and regulatory proceedings being filed under the Punjab Defamation Act, 2024, The Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010, sections relating to criminal intimidation, harassment, defamation and intimidation under applicable laws of Pakistan and other civil remedies available under Pakistani law.

The group also claimed Best Male K-pop Artist and Song of the Summer for ​the single ‘Swim’.

BTS prevailed in a high-powered Artist of the Year category that included Taylor Swift, winner of the most ​AMAs of any musician over her career, as well as Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny, Harry Styles, ⁠Lady Gaga and others.

“We made it once again!” BTS member RM told screaming fans inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in ​Las Vegas. BTS won the same honour in 2021.

“Our biggest thanks and gratitude, as always, goes to the ARMYs all ​over the world,” RM added, referring to the nickname for BTS fans. “You have stood by us for the past 13 years.”

The red-carpet gala, which aired live on CBS and Paramount+, opened with members of BTS in a pre-recorded performance of ‘Hooligan’ from a recent Vegas concert.

BTS went on ​hiatus in 2022 when all seven members took part in South Korea’s mandatory military service. In March, they returned with their ​fifth studio album Arirang. The album topped the Billboard 200 chart for two weeks, a first for a K-pop group or artist.

In other AMA ‌wins ⁠for K-pop, the Song of the Year award went to EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, the voices behind the fictional group HUNTR/X and ‘Golden’, the upbeat tune from the Netflix animated movie KPop Demon Hunters. The trio won three AMAs in total.

Katseye, a global girl group with members from four countries, also took home three awards including New Artist of the Year.

Swift had ​been the leading nominee heading ​into the ceremony, with eight ⁠nods including Album of the Year for The Life of a Showgirl and Song of the Year for ‘The Fate of Ophelia’. She did not win in any of the categories and did ​not attend the event.

Carpenter, also a no-show, earned Album of the Year for Man’s Best ​Friend and two ⁠other awards.

Twenty-year-old indie musician Sombr scored three trophies including Best Rock/Alternative Song for ‘Back to Friends’.

“I wrote this song when I was 19 and depressed all by myself in my bedroom,” he said on stage. “So being here, I never would have expected that.”

Billy Idol, ⁠an ​icon of 1980s rock, received a lifetime achievement honour. The 70-year-old reflected ​on starting a career in punk rock in 1976.

“We thought it may last only about six months, let alone 50 years,” Idol said before performing ​rousing versions of ‘Eyes Without a Face’ and ‘Dancing with Myself’.

Hamza Habib, the husband to be of the actor, appeared before the court, along with his legal team.

A lawyer argued that the petitioner wanted to prove his innocence by joining the investigation before Jhang police, but there are apprehensions of his unlawful arrest.

He asked the court to allow protective bail to the petitioner so that he could appear before the relevant district court for pre-arrest bail.

Justice Abher Gul Khan allowed the request and granted protective bail to the petitioner till June 1, with a direction to approach the relevant court by the next date of hearing.

Jhang police registered a case against Hamza on allegations that he issued life threats to the ruling party MPA.

Talking to the media, Habib said he had already solemnised nikah with Momina and that she was his wife and his “honour”.

He said their wedding ceremony would be held as per its schedule and he would not leave Momina.

He alleged that MPA Chadhar had lodged a false FIR against him.

He further alleged that the MPA had tried to contact him, asking him to step away from Momina in exchange for money.

He said Chadhar should keep his money to himself, adding that “he cannot buy me.”

Originally published in Dawn, May 26th, 2026

Rollins had recorded the confidently titled Jazz Colossus album in 1956, but the saxophonist remained wracked with self-doubt.

So, in the summer of 1959, he ​began to play on the windswept pedestrian walkway of New York’s Williamsburg Bridge. Initially a place where he could avoid disturbing his pregnant neighbour, the walkway became the site ‌of endless practice.

“What made me withdraw and go to the bridge was how I felt about my own playing,” Rollins told the Guardian newspaper in 2022. “I knew I was dissatisfied.”

He ended up spending more than two years there, often for 14 or 15 hours a day.

“Of course, sometimes I’d come down to go to the bathroom, or I’d go to a bar I liked where I might have a cognac,” he said. “But then I’d go right back up.”

The resulting record, The Bridge, was not a ​complete break from his previous style but took his soloing and improvisation to a new level. A review in the Jazz Journal at the time said Rollins was able “to extract the last ​ounce of meaning from a particular phrase taken from the melody of the song”.

The record also set him on a course to becoming one of the most ⁠acclaimed performers of his generation, alongside John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter.

Rollins died at his home in Woodstock, New York, according to a statement released on Monday.

I was just immersed in it

Born on September 7, 1930, ​Walter Theodore Rollins grew up in Harlem surrounded by music.

Both his brother and sister studied violin and piano. Pianist Fats Waller lived in the neighbourhood. Sonny, as he was known from an early age, recalled how he ​instinctively knew that Waller’s music was right for him — “like a baby getting a bottle or something,” he told PBS NewsHour.

His idol, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, lived nearby, too.

On his way to school, Rollins walked past the Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom — both venues at the heart of the New York jazz world. “I was just immersed in it from the beginning really,” he said.

A child prodigy, Rollins was influenced by saxophonist Charlie Parker and mentored by pianist Thelonious Monk. Early opportunities came calling ​in the late 1950s when he played with leading jazz artists such as Art Blakey, Bud Powell and Miles Davis.

He wrote some of Davis’ best-known early pieces, including ‘Oleo’ and ‘Airegin’.

Saxophone Colossus included the calypso-inspired ‘St Thomas’, starting a ​long association with the music beloved by his parents, who hailed from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Rollins’ often marathon, hard-blowing solos earned him a reputation as the greatest jazz saxophone improviser.

He told PBS he would go on stage with his ‌mind blank and ⁠no plan for his solos beyond an awareness of the structure of the piece. “Improvising on it, that I leave completely to the forces,” he said. “Sometimes I’m surprised by what comes out.”

Rollins also innovated by using his sax as a rhythm section instrument.

Albums included the soundtrack to the film Alfie, and East Broadway Run Down, both recorded in 1966.

His devil-may-care compositions for Alfie captured the mood of that movie as successfully as Davis’ haunting music had done for Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows eight years earlier.

I’m the last guy

Things could have turned out very differently for Rollins. In 1950 he was arrested for armed robbery and spent 10 months in jail.

“In retrospect, it was ​the first of my sabbaticals! Unlike the others, ​it wasn’t self-imposed. But it was a learning ⁠place,” Rollins said about his time behind bars in an interview with Uncut magazine.

“The prison was a brutal place, but fortunately I was involved in the music, and I largely avoided the brutality.”

In 1952, he was re-arrested for breaking the terms of his parole by using heroin, a habit he later swapped for an exercise ​regime and yoga practice, shunning the all-night partying that destroyed the careers of so many other musicians.

During another sabbatical, starting in 1969, he spent time ​in Japan and India — including ⁠a spell in a monastery — before reappearing in the early 1970s to make more records.

Lucille, whom he married in 1965, acted as his manager. The couple stayed together until her death in 2004. They had no children.

Rollins recorded more than 60 albums as a leader. He performed with bands including the Rolling Stones, providing improvisations to three tracks on their 1981 album Tattoo You. But he later told The New York Times that he did not relate to ⁠their music, which ​he felt was “just derivative of Black blues”.

After winning two Grammy awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, as ​well as a Lifetime Achievement Award from that same institution, a respiratory illness forced him to stop playing. He retired in 2014.

Rollins was aware of his place as the last surviving giant of the era of jazz led by Parker, Monk and Coltrane.

“I’m the ​last guy but in a way I’m not, because when I’m gone my music is going to be here,” he told PBS in 2011. “We’re all still here, we’re all still here.”

She posted a series of pictures on Sunday, including one of the welcome the family had prepared for their newest member and another of the little angel “sleeping peacefully in our world at last”.

And a picture of the baby.

Some of the pictures were older, from when the actor was still pregnant.

One of the shots was even snapped by the soon-to-be older sister Alyana. Khan posted pictures of all the cool things she got up to during the pregnancy, including a trip to Disneyland.

She also posted a giant bouquet of roses Shabir got her — talk about couple goals.

There were all the items and preparations done specifically for the baby’s arrival, including the tiniest milk bottle and the cutest set of clothes.

A shot of Khan after having the baby was also included. In the initial announcement, she’d made clear that she’d waited, recovered and soaked in the joy before sharing her news with the world.

Of course, there were pictures of Alyana too, settling well into her big sister duties.

While the happy parents continue to soak in the joys of having a new member join their family, we’d just like to wish them the very best with their baby!

The notice referenced Shajaffar’s appearance on the YouTube show Say It All with Iffat Omar and claimed that she accused Butt of having “sexually harassed [her] on set”. Shajaffar has not publicly commented on the notice, and in the interview, she referred to the person solely as “Arsalan”. She later clarified on social media that she was not talking about Arslan Khan, her College Gate costar.

Butt’s connection to the incident is being attributed to Omar, the host, who purportedly said he was the one being discussed.

Shajaffar’s interview with Omar was released on May 21. In it, the actor mentioned a number of instances in which “Arsalan’s” behaviour made her “feel uncomfortable” and that he believed she was “someone to get fresh or frank with”.

Shajaffar recalled an incident where she was discussing Manto’s feminism with the project’s writer when “Arsalan” entered the discussion, claiming Manto was not a feminist and women “hated him”. Upon being rebuked by Shajaffar, he began “shaking his belt as if he wanted to take it off and hit me with it”. She said he also “started calling me names”.

The notice described the allegations made by Shajaffar against “Arsalan” as “false, baseless, malicious and defamatory” and said they had caused “serious reputational damage, mental distress, humiliation and public embarrassment” to Butt.

The notice demanded Shajaffar “retract the allegations”, “take steps for the removal of the defamatory content”, “issue a clear, unconditional public apology and retraction” on YouTube and “refrain from repeating such allegations in the future”.

In the event that she does not comply within 14 days, the notice said Butt’s legal team would “initiate civil defamation proceedings, criminal proceedings and all other remedies available under Pakistani law”.

In the interview, Shajaffar also claimed “Arsalan” made inappropriate comments about her body. “He was like, ‘Listen, you should really eat this and eat that. That will give you some weight here and there.’”

The actor said she told her co-star to “shut the f*** up”, which she said he did not take well.

She also mentioned an incident in which the director had told her and “Arsalan” to work together and he approached her for a hug. Shajaffar said she told him to not touch her four times while backing away and when he didn’t listen, she screamed at him.

This, the Lali actor said, caused him to resort to his own stream of expletives. “He lost his mind because I didn’t allow him to touch me without my permission. I don’t know how I had the guts, I was shaking, but I was like, ‘no means no’.”

The pop star talked about his marriage and newfound followers in an interview with Haroon Rashid on BBC Asian Network.

Raheem said he was glad he got married, joking that he thinks his wife “likes the attention” she gets from the relationship. “Honestly, I’m like, ‘It just took like six years to be a star and look at you, like two days and you’re everywhere’. And she’s like, ‘Stop it, Hasan.’”

The singer called marriage the “best decision I did”, adding that the wedding took place at “a crucial point in my life, going through a lot of stuff”.

He said the cultural aspect of the wedding was very important to him, so he got married “in the most authentic Gilgiti way”.

“Everyone had to see that side of me. What’s better than doing it on your wedding?”

What Raheem didn’t see coming was the outpouring of love he received and not just from fans either. “I was not expecting it to blow up so much. Like, I get aunties meeting me who are not fans of my music. They’re like, ‘You got married!’ I’m like, ‘What?’”

The star recalled an incident when he was flying within the US and talked to a woman whose daughter wanted to attend his concert in Washington DC.

She asked him to get her daughter tickets and while Raheem got on with arranging passes, the woman stopped him and said, “One second, beta, listen to me. You’re the Hasan who got married, right? I know you!”

“The wedding had a separate fanbase,” he told Rashid.